sequence of splitting realities. Deep troubles are discovered by the network,
not merely contrived; they are obdurate and unmalleable; they constrain and
shape the path of the philosophical network across the generations. In the same
way, the sequence of abstraction and reflexivity, which socially undermines
itself at high levels of self-reflection, also is an obdurate reality, a constraint
which shapes the long-term pathway of the network. Abstraction and reflexiv-
ity, the terrain explored by this most acutely self-conscious and inwardly
turning of all networks, are real because they are activities arising through
the historical existence of the social network itself. Even philosophy, the ar-
chetypal conflictual discipline under the law of small numbers, the field whose
creativity battens on self-propagating difficulties, makes discoveries about a
reality of its own.
Epilogue: Sociological Realism^ •^881